A Comparative Experimental Study On The Tendency To Delay Decisions For 3～5 Children

Mischel (1974) thinks that The delay of gratification is one kind of psychological mature performance. It refers to one kind of more willing to give up valuable time to meet the long-term results orientation choice, as well as self-control ability which demonstrated in the waiting time. It means that one person gives up the instant gratification and it reflects the ability of self-imposed delay. Mischel thinks that Self imposed delay of gratification contains two stages(delayed choice and delayed maintenance). Delayed choice means one person makes a decision between the immediated rewards and delayed rewards. Delayed maintenance means that if a person choose the delayed rewards, he or she must maintain a delay period in order to get the delayed rewards. The study on the theory of Self-imposed delay of gratification in other countries is developed, but most previous studies focused on the phase of the delayed maintenance, the study on the phase of delayed choice is rare, particularly the delaying choice contrast studies on the individual and the group are still less. Therefore, The papers that are focused on the individual and the group contrast study on the delayed choice of the 3~5 year-old children. It means a theoretical value and true significance for the developing psychology, the educational psychology , the psychological education and training programs etc.The experiment, combined with the Choice paradigm, adopts the methods of the philology, of the experimentation, the behavior observation and the conversation. A random, layered sample of one-hundred and twenty 3~5 year-old children from the Montessori bilingual kindergarten is taken as the examinee. It tested the gender differences and choice differences on the individual and the group situationsThe experimental study reaches a set of main conclusions that (1) there is not a significant age difference in the delaying-gratifying ability, there is not a significant age difference both on the individual and the group situations. It means that the delay of gratification ability for the 3~5 children is no significant age difference .(2) Overall, there is a significant choice difference for the 3~5 children in individual and group situations. Specifically, most children tend to choose delay of gratification on the group situations.(3) Overall, there is a significant gender difference bias on the choice of delay for the 3~5 children in different situations. From the different age groups, in addition to 5-year-old children, there is a significant gender difference bias on the choice of delay there is not a significant gender difference bias on the choice of delay in different situations for the 3-year-old and 4-year-old children.